Warsaw climate meet must measure rich lands' emissions

The Department of Water and Power San Fernando Valley Generating Station is seen December 11, 2008 in Sun Valley, California

The Department of Water and Power San Fernando Valley Generating Station is seen December 11, 2008 in Sun Valley, California

Brazil said Wednesday that next week's Warsaw climate change meeting should set itself the task of measuring the damage done by rich countries' greenhouse gas emissions.

Developing countries want the mainly-Western first world powers that benefited more from early industrialization to make the greatest sacrifices in any plan to halt climate change.

"This responsibility results from man's actions on Earth and they increased a great deal after the Industrial Revolution," said Jose Antonio Marcondes de Carvalho, a Brazilian foreign ministry official.

"These countries are responsible for the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," he added.

"We need to find out who were those responsible for the accumulation of those gases in nature," de Carvalho said.

He stressed the need to work out a methodology, similar to the one used to measure a country's GDP.

Negotiators will meet in Warsaw from Monday to set a timetable and agree steps towards a global and binding agreement on climate change to be signed in Paris in 2015 and enter into force in 2020.

That pact would for the first time bind all the world's nations to measurable targets for curbing the greenhouse gas emissions widely blamed for global warming.

Global greenhouse gas emissions will be eight to 12 billion tonnes higher than target levels in 2020, even if surveyed countries stick to existing emission-reduction agreements, according to a UN report.